'Texas 7' escapee Joseph Garcia executed in Huntsville

1of31Death row inmate Joseph Garcia gets emotional during an interview at Polunsksy Unit on Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2018, in Livingston. “I don’t think there’s enough words in the world to say to him what he needs to hear,” he said of the son of Officer Aubrey Hawkins, who was gunned down on Christmas Eve in 2000 during a robbery at an Irving sporting goods store.Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

2of31Photo: Houston Chronicle

3of31The Texas Seven This moniker refers to a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, in 2000. Roughly a month later, they were captured thanks to the show "America's Most Wanted."Photo: TDCJ

4of31The Texas Seven
Garcia will be the fourth from the seven to be executed. Pictures left to right are: Michael Anthony Rodriguez, George Angel Rivas, Joseph Christopher Garcia and Randy Ethan Halprin. Photo: HO, AP

5of31Where they hid outInvestigators enter a camper in the Coachlight Motel and R.V. Park near Woodland Park, Colo., Monday, Jan. 22, 2001. Seven Texas prison escapees are believed to have been living in the camper.Photo: JAY JANNER, AP

6of31A long time on death rowJoseph Garcia of San Antonio, was interviewed as he awaits execution in 2010. This is roughly nine years since he was recaptured and eight years from his scheduled execution, Dec. 4, 2018.Photo: Investigation Discovery

7of31Execution dateThis photo from 2001 shows him after the escape. He is noticeably younger and several years from his scheduled execution.Photo: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI, AP

8of31His words
"I am on death row because of the actions and intent of others and because I am one of the Texas Seven, case closed," he wrote the Chronicle weeks before his scheduled execution. "Is it right that I should be murdered for something that I did not do?" Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Staff photographer

9of31Ahead of the escapeBefore Garcia's escape, he was serving a 50-year sentence for a fight that ended with one man dead. He claimed he stabbed the victim, Miguel Luna, in self defense. Later, his prison escape and burglary at the Irving store resulted in the death of an Irving police officer.Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

11of31The victimIrving Police officer Aubrey Hawkins was shot and killed as he responded to a robbery at a sporting goods store that had just closed on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2000.Photo: AP

12of31The victimLori Hawkins, right, identifies a picture of her husband, Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins. She testified in the trial of George Rivas, the ringleader of a group of inmates who escaped from a South Texas prison.Photo: RICHARD MICHAEL PRUITT, POOL / AP

13of31Words to the victim's son“I don’t think there’s enough words in the world to say to him what he needs to hear,” he said of the son of Officer Aubrey Hawkins.Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

15of31The search A poster of the Texas Seven in Farmers Branch, Texas., Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2001. They eventually landed on TV show "America's Most Wanted," which led to their capture.Photo: LM OTERO, AP

16of31Executed years agoIn this Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012, photo, George Rivas speaks about his part in the crime rampage by the Texas Seven from death row in the Allan Polunsky Unit prison in Livingston, Texas. On Dec. 13, 2000, Rivas’ gang overpowered workers at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Connally Unit prison in Kenedy and stole the workers' clothes, broke into the prison's armory to get guns, and drove away in a prison truck. They committed several robberies, including two in Houston, and then 11 days later, gunned down Aubrey Hawkins, 27. Rivas was executed in 2012.Photo: AP

17of31Executed in 2008Michael Rodriguez, left, was among the seven, he was executed in 2008. Photo: DAVID ZALUBOWSKI, AP

18of31Awaiting executionRandy Halprin, another of the seven, was 25 years old when he received his death sentence in 2003. He is currently still on death row.Photo: SMILEY N. POOL, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

20of31This booking photo provided by the The Hopkins County Sheriff's Office shows John Marlin King. On Tuesday, April 2, 2013, King and Brian Allen Tucker, an inmate awaiting trial on a capital murder charge in a 2011 slaying, broke out of the Hopkins County Jail. (AP Photo/The Hopkins County Sheriff's Office)Photo: HOPD

21of31This booking photo provided by the The Hopkins County Sheriff's Office shows Brian Allen Tucker. On Tuesday, April 2, 2013, Tucker, an inmate awaiting trial on a capital murder charge in a 2011 slaying and another prisoner, John Marlin King, broke out of the Hopkins County Jail. (AP Photo/The Hopkins County Sheriff's Office)Photo: HOPD

22of31Hopkins County law enforcement officers set up a command center in Sulphur Springs on Tuesday to expand the manhunt for capital murder suspect Brian Allen Tucker and John Marlin King, who escaped from jail.Photo: Luis Noble, HONS

23of31The rest of the sevenPatrick Murphy, Jr., left, enters the courtroom Wednesday Feb. 14, 2001 as Donald Newbury, center bottom, talks to his attorney. Newbury was executed in Huntsville in 2015. Murphy is still on death row.Photo: JERILEE BENNETT, AP

24of31Executed three years agoDonald Newbury appears for advisement before Judge Barney Luppa at the El Paso County Jail in Colorado Springs, Colo., Wednesday afternoon, Jan. 24, 2001. Murphy and fellow escapee Patrick Murphy Jr., 39, were the last two of the Texas Seven to be captured. He was executed in 2015.Photo: JERILEE BENNETT, AP

25of31Capturing the escapeesLaw enforcement officers take up positions at the Coachlight RV Park in Woodland Park, Colo., Monday, Jan. 22, 2001 where one of the Texas Seven was arrested and another killed himself. Acting on a tip, authorities on Monday captured four of the seven convicts who broke out of a Texas prison nearly six weeks ago and allegedly gunned down a policeman on Christmas Eve. A fifth inmate killed himself inside a motor home.Photo: JAY JANNER, AP

26of31The trialFBI Special Agent James Mahoney inspects a pistol found in an RV used by the Texas Seven escapees in Colorado, according to prosecutors, during Donald Newbury's capital murder trial, Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2002, in Dallas.Photo: ANDY SCOTT, AP

28of31Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins is seen with his son in this undated photo. Hawkins was killed in a 2000 Christmas Eve robbery of Oshman's Super Store in Irving.Photo: HANDOUT PHOTO, POOL / AP

29of31Irving Police officer Aubrey Hawkins, shown in this undated photo, was shot and killed as he responded to a robbery at a sporting goods store that had just closed on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2000.Photo: AP

30of31The Teller County Sheriff's office released the booking mug shots of the four Texas prison escapees that were apprehended on Monday in Woodland Park, Colo., and are now in custody in Devide, Colo., Tuesday, Jan 23, 2001. Pictures left to right are: Michael Anthony Rodriguez, George Angel Rivas, Joseph Christopher Garcia and Randy Ethan Halprin. (AP Photo/HO) HOUCHRON CAPTION (01/24/2001): Teller County Sheriff's Department mug shots show how captured escapees, from left, Michael Rodriguez, George Rivas, Joseph Garcia and Randy Halprin drastically altered their appearances. HOUCHRON CAPTION (01/26/2001): Six members of the so-called "Texas Seven," including George Rivas, above, are the latest catches made with the help of "America's Most Wanted."Photo: HO, AP

31of31Joseph Garcia is led out of the Teller County Courthouse in Cripple Creek, Colorado after two of the Texas Seven escapees appeared in 4th Judicial District Court for a hearing on their extradition to Texas on Jan. 26, 2001.Photo: SMILEY N. POOL, STAFF / HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Nearly two decades after the brazen prison break-out and cross-state crime spree that landed him on America's Most Wanted and eventually on death row, Texas 7 prisoner Joseph Garcia was executed Tuesday night in Huntsville.

In his final words from the gurney, he offered a quick prayer.

"Dear Heavenly Father," he said, "please forgive them for they know not what they do."

He was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m., 13 minutes after the lethal dose began.

In recent weeks, the 47-year-old convicted in the Christmas Eve killing of a North Texas police officer launched a slew of appeals, lawsuits, pleas for reprieve and requests for clemency. His last-minute legal moves raised questions about his initial conviction, the controversial "law of parties" and the source of the state's lethal injection supplies.

But on Friday, the parole board rebuffed the condemned man's request for clemency, and lower courts turned down appeal after appeal. By Tuesday morning, he still had a number of claims in front of appeals courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, and a long-shot bid for reprieve sitting on the governor's desk.

"I am on death row because of the actions and intent of others and because I am one of the Texas Seven, case closed," he wrote the Chronicle weeks before his scheduled execution. "Is it right that I should be murdered for something that I did not do?"

To some friends and family of the slain policeman – Officer Aubrey Hawkins – the answer is clear.

"Whatever participation he had, he went along with it," said Seagoville police Sgt. Karl Bailey, a long-time friend of the Hawkins family. "The whole thing was sparked by the escape from prison, the burglaries - it was a crime spree."

Though Garcia offered no apology in his final statement, he sent out a message of remorse through his attorneys.

"I want to offer my heartfelt apology to the family of Officer Hawkins, and the workers at Oshman's in Dallas," he said. "None of this was supposed to happen. I wish it didn't."

At the time of the breakout in December 2000, the Bexar County native was locked up in a prison south of San Antonio, serving a 50-year sentence stemming from a boozy fight that ended with one man dead. Garcia was convicted of murder, but he has long maintained that it was the other man - Miguel Luna - who attacked him, and that the fatal stabbing was only in self-defense.

Behind bars, he made friends with a charismatic thief named George Rivas. First, they bonded over a "poor man's spread" of prisoner-made food. Then, they plotted an escape.

Inspired by a book, their plan took months to prepare. They picked a crew, spread rumors among the guards, surveyed the grounds and gathered supplies.

On Dec. 13, they made good on their plot. Some of the men stayed back from lunch to wax the floors in the maintenance shop, according to trial testimony. Then, as guards, civilian staff and other inmates returned from eating, the men overpowered them and took them hostage one by one.

After gaining control of maintenance, two of the gang dressed up as prison workers to sneak into the armory and take control of the guard tower. Then they fled, driving out the gate in a prison truck.

They switched out vehicles at a nearby Walmart, where one man's father had left them a truck.Once they realized the men were missing, authorities rushed to put up a roadblock - but the escapees missed it by about four cars. Headed toward Houston, Garcia looked out the back of the vehicle and watching police erect sawhorses in the road behind them, he told the Chronicle.

After pulling off a pair of robberies to load up with cash and supplies in the Bayou City, the fleeing prisoners left and headed north.

In the Dallas suburb of Irving, the seven escapees staked out an Oshman's sporting goods store. They got a copy of the newspaper and cut out the picture of a Scholastic Award winner, then glued his image to a WANTED poster.

Bearing their handmade sign and wearing security guard uniforms, two of the men went inside just before closing on Christmas Eve, aiming to bluff their way into the surveillance room to figure out how much of the store was on camera.

Once they did that, Rivas announced that it was a robbery. They took hostages and stole guns, money and supplies. But before they left, a lone police officer showed up.

Garcia says he was still inside the building when he heard the shots, but some of the other men offered different accounts.

In all, five men fired shots. Rivas admitted he was one of them – but the state never proved that Garcia was. He still maintains that he was inside the building when the shooting started.

Afterward, they fled to Colorado, driving straight into a blizzard. They stopped at motels along the way, then holed up in a trailer park near Colorado Springs. For a month, they posed as Christian missionaries before they were finally captured. One of the men – Larry Harper – killed himself rather than be taken back to prison.

The other six were sent to death row, and three have since been executed. To the former prosecutor who handled all six of the trials, a fourth execution date comes as a welcome relief.

"It's been almost 18 years," attorney Toby Shook told the Chronicle earlier this year. "It's satisfying that the actual sentence will actually be carried out."

In his final weeks, Garcia has launched an array of appeals. In one claim, he argued that his original Bexar County killing was actually self-defense and not murder. If so, he said, it shouldn't have been used as evidence of future dangerousness – something the state is required to show to secure a death sentence.

In a separate appeal filed in Dallas County, Garcia and his legal team raised claims of earlier bad lawyering, an allegedly racist judge and the constitutionality of using the law of parties to execute someone the state never showed was a shooter or ever intended to kill anyone.

Among Garcia's other pending legal actions is a challenge to the state's lethal injection procedures in light of recent reporting about the alleged source of the drugs. In recent days, he'd also tried lobbing a lawsuit at the parole board, arguing the seven-member panel had too many former law enforcement members to be representative of the general public.

But as his lawyers fought for his life, Garcia spent his final weeks coming to terms with his own regrets and trying to live "day-by-day" till the end. He prayed, he paced in his cell and, during a death row interview, he expressed remorse for the now-grown man left without a father 18 years ago.

"Man, I don't even know his name," he said. "That's a shame."

Choking up, he paused.

"I don't think there's enough words in the world to say to him what he needs to hear."

He was the 12th Texas prisoner executed this year. Another death date is scheduled for next week.

Keri Blakinger covers breaking news, prisons and the death penalty. She was hired at the Houston Chronicle through the Hearst Fellows program. She graduated from Cornell University and covered county and town government at the Ithaca Times before moving to breaking news at the New York Daily News.